Online Educational Courses Implementation in Technical Universities

This article focuses on the problem of rethinking the use of online education courses when teaching technical university students in social, humanitarian and major subjects. The authors examine both positive and negative aspects of introducing online educational courses (OECs) into today's educational process. The paper considers three types of online educational courses: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), Shared Educational Online Courses (SEOCs) and University Internal Online Courses (UIOCs), which could successfully improve the existing system of teaching students both in Russia and Kazakhstan. The authors also rely on laws and orders regarding the introduction of online educational courses in university environment and approved by federal legislation and offer their vision for the implementation of these orders. The paper further describes the researchers’ experiment on introducing online courses and blended learning into the educational process of two universities (Samara State Technical University—SamGTU and Makhambet Utemisov West Kazakhstan State University—WKSU). The authors draw the following conclusions: on the one hand, the use of online educational courses is mandatory for the successful existence of any educational organization in modern reality. On the other hand, OECs (MOOCs, SEOCs, UIOCs) used now as substitutes for some parts or modules of traditional face-to-face courses (in purely remote format) are not suitable for all students. Most students are ready to master online educational courses only under the guidance of teachers and prefer a blended learning format. When choosing between MOOCs, SEOCs, UIOCs, they give preference to UIOCs.